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| Thirty prominent climate scientists sent a letter to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt on Monday, refuting his recent false statement that carbon dioxide is not a primary driver of climate change. —Inside Climate News, March 13, 2017. Image source: DonkeyHotey. |
Their mental houses have a leaky roof
and cracked foundations built on shaky ground.
They squat inside, benighted and aloof,
imagining the Earth is safe and sound.
For them a fact is nothing but a spoof
devised by eggheads in a lab somewhere.
They blindly scoff at scientific proof
that points to threatened water, land, and air.
They sit in darkness, make-believe what’s true,
and bar the door so reason can’t get through.
Richard Meyer, a former English and humanities teacher, lives in the home his father built in Mankato, a city at the bend of the Minnesota River. His poems have appeared in various publications, including Able Muse, The Raintown Review, Think, Measure, Alabama Literary Review, Light, and The Evansville Review. He was awarded the 2012 Robert Frost Farm Prize for his poem “Fieldstone” and was the recipient of the 2014 String Poet Prize for his poem “The Autumn Way.” A book of his collected poems Orbital Paths was a silver medalist winner in the 2016 IBPA Benjamin Franklin Awards.